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college, university,
when attended, dates.
    What program did you specialize in at
Business School?
    Major field of
study.Major extracurricular activities in order of importance.
    Distinctions, honours and awards.
    What did you get out of your academic and
extracurricular life at college?
    Describe your avocations and hobbies.
    On a full page, describe your three most
substantial accomplishments and explain why you view them as such.
    What factors led you to decide an oil
company would be helpful to your career development ?.
    Discuss other vocations or professions that
you have seriously considered.
    Give a candid evaluation of yourself.
Discuss those characteristics you feel have become your strengths and those you
feel are your weaknesses.
    Describe any situation or job in which you
felt you had responsibility and tell us what you learnt from that experience.
    Do you have any disabilities or illness
which would necessitate special treatment? Yes/No. If
yes, explain.
    List three references.
     
    You can’t succeed in business without
proving you are a normal, full-blooded member of the human race. David filled
in the form, admitting to no weakness more ineradicable than inexperience.
    A few more days passed before another letter
summoned him to an interview at a local hotel on the following Wednesday at
three o’clock. Talent scouts for big companies often used such a venue for
interviews in a university city.
    David arrived at two forty-five at the
Copley Square Hotel in Huntington Avenue, the adrenaline pumping round his
body. He repeated the Harvard Business School motto to himself as he was
ushered into a small private room: look British, think Yiddish.
    Three men, who introduced themselves as
Silverstein, Cooper and Elliott, interviewed him. Bernie Silverstein, a
silver-haired, check-tied New Yorker with a solid aura of success, was in
charge. Cooper and Elliott sat and watched David silently. It didn’t throw him:
he knew he looked keen and was coming over well.
    Silverstein spent considerable time giving
David an enticing description of the company’s background and its future aims.
Harvey had trained Silverstein well and he had all the glib expertise at his
well-manicured fingertips needed by the right-hand man in a Metcalfe coup.
    “So there you have it, Mr. Kesler. We’re
involved in one of the biggest commercial opportunities in the world, looking
for oil in the North Sea off Scotland. Our company, Discovery Oil, has the
backing of one of the largest banks in America. We have been granted licences
from the British Government and we have the finance. But companies are made,
Mr. Kesler, by people, it’s as simple as that. We’re looking for a man who will
work night and day to put Discovery Oil on the map, and we’ll pay the right man
a top salary to do just that. If you were offered the position you would be
working in our London office under the immediate direction of our Number Two,
Mr. Elliott.”
    “Where are the company headquarters?”
    “Montreal, Canada, but we have offices in
New York, San Francisco, London, Aberdeen, Paris and Brussels.”
    “Is the company looking for oil anywhere
else?”
    “Not at the moment,” answered Silverstein. “We’re
sinking millions into the North Sea after BP’s successful strike, and at the
moment the fields around us have all had a one in five success rate, which is
very high in our business.”
    “When would you want the successful
applicant to start?”
    “Some time in January, when he has completed
a government training course on management in oil,” said Richard Elliott. The
slim, sallow Number Two sounded as if he was from Georgia. The government
course was a typical Harvey Metcalfe touch.
    “And the company apartment,” said David, “where’s
that?”
    Cooper spoke: “You will have the small
company flat in the Barbican, a few hundred yards away from our London City
office.”
    David had no more questions–Silverstein had
covered everything